Best known in the US as one of the great Italian postwar filmmakers, Pier Paolo Pasolini was also an influential, outspoken, and openly gay poet, novelist, critic, journalist, playwright, and painter. He held seemingly conflicting philosophies as both a Marxist and a Catholic, and was a staunch leftist who once spoke out against left-wing student protests in favor of the working-class police. His filmography represents perhaps the most subversive body of work ever put to film, still provoking outrage and charges of blasphemy in some quarters. However controversial, the themes he explores achieve a measure of timelessness and universality as many of his films are set in the distant past. Most importantly, his films often portray the lives of those existing on the fringes of society, in roles often played by nonprofessional actors. The Wex is thrilled to present this nearly complete retrospective with many titles screening in newly restored 35mm prints.

The film Pasolini considered his favorite, Hawks and Sparrows stars the Italian comic Totò and Pasolini muse Ninetto Davoli in a comical, Brechtian fable partially set in the time of St. Francis. (89 mins., 35mm) Starring Jean-Pierre Léaud and Pierre Clémenti, the highly symbolic Porcile (Pigsty) consists of two alternating, complementary stories. The first depicts a man in an unspecified era who turns to cannibalism and ravages the countryside before his arrest. The second follows the son of a German postwar industrialist who favors the company of pigs to that of his leftist girlfriend. (98 mins., 35mm)